Maternity leave at the School District of Philadelphia is archaic

Every Friday, I bid adieu to my students and implored them to “make wise choices and eat pizza.” Pizza is always a wise decision. The tradition started in January when I was unknowingly pregnant. In the following months, I’ve used my passion for pepperoni to skirt questions about my growing midsection. “I’ve simply eaten too much pizza,” I tell my sophomores.

But growing with the baby and my love for quattro formaggi is my anxiety about the School District of Philadelphia’s maternity leave policy, which leaves mothers financially shortchanged postpartum.

Maternity leave is essentially treated, and internally coded by human resources, as an illness. For years, there has been no paid outright leave. In the district’s view, “The six or eight week parental leave is a paid leave if, and only if, the employee giving birth has accrued sick days and/or the wage continuation benefit. If an employee does not have sick days or the wage continuation benefit ... the leave will be unpaid.”

Simply put, an employee must use her sick days — the same ones she uses in the case of appendicitis and cancer — followed by an employee-purchased short-term disability. This pays out 50% of teachers’ wages and only is effective for six weeks once sick days are used up (or eight weeks for a C-section). Beyond the six weeks, the program requires a physical disability to become active — like blowing your hip while hobbling to the delivery room or, Lord forbid, tearing a certain unmentionable during delivery.

Not having child care for your newborn, even though most day cares only start admitting at 3 months, is not a valid criterion. If the employee does not return to work within 89 working days, she and the baby are dropped from employer-provided health insurance. What’s more, the maternity length is counted against one’s total teaching experience, which delays educators who become pregnant from reaching financial incentives that come from length of service.

Furthermore, the district recently announced scheduling changes to the school day. On top of being a new mother and losing weeks of wages, day-care hours will now conflict with the school day. The drop-off and pickup hours of my many day cares conflict with the new school hours, which leaves me with little choice but to choose a more expensive provider or extend the hours, and cost, of care. This policy change will have financial ripple effects for years.

The city’s archaic maternity leave policy differs from the visions of other large urban school districts. In New York City, the district “provides six weeks of time off at full salary for maternity, paternity, adoption and foster care leave.” In Chicago, mothers receive paid maternity leave through short-term disability programs, which begin at full compensation and drop in 20% increments each month. Oddly enough, in Philadelphia, 10-year employees are eligible for a half-paid sabbatical — without pushing a newborn through a delicate space.

The financial burden of the current policy, translated to weeks of lost wages, is felt at a time when countless female professionals are already struggling with lost wages. Many teachers lost tens of thousands during the pay freeze under the State Reform Commission in 2013. Teachers are also facing the rising cost of required continuing education credits, inflation, and the skyrocketing price of child care.

These factors combined invariably force mothers to go beyond their limits to return to the classroom and financially provide for a new child. The effects of a forced short recovery from pregnancy are far-reaching — a nasty combination of mental and health hurdles, compounded by sleepless nights.

Nevertheless, Philadelphia’s policy continues despite studies that show that women with paid maternity leave are less likely to experience postpartum depression, decreased retention, decreased morale, and decreased productivity. At closer inspection, the policy violates the district’s own vision of equity, which claims to be “removing barriers, increasing access and inclusion, building trusting relationships, and creating a shared culture of social responsibility and organizational accountability.”

With nearly 2,000 vacancies mid-school year, plunging numbers of teacher certification rates in the state, and a rising availability of positions in neighboring districts, Philadelphia’s School District cannot afford to lose or burn out its female teaching force.

Lydia Kulina-Washburn is a high school English language arts teacher at the School District of Philadelphia. @LydiaKulina